Education Class Learns through Service and Games

Each semester, Don Woo, dean for ethnic diversity and multicultural programs, accompanies his Introduction to Education students on service learning trips to Circle Urban Ministries in the Austin neighborhood of Chicago. There Trinity students help with the Circle 4 Success Afterschool Program.

Woo said that service learning is an important part of the education program and allows students to put into practice some of their educational tools.

“Our students need to know what it means to serve others while providing excellent instruction,” Woo said.

Woo also appreciates the open line of communication the education department has with its service learning partners and said that adding a service learning component to the class was natural because the department’s motto of Serving with Excellence.

Students, such as sophomore Angie Klunder ’17 of Alto, Michigan, enjoy time spent at the afterschool program.

“Circle Urban was incredibly fun,” Klunder said. “It was a great experience.”

The program focuses on four components of child development: social and emotional development, strength and skill development, academic enrichment, and spiritual growth. Trinity students take part in games and activities that address these developmental areas.

After the first trip of the semester, Trinity students left impressed with the Circle Urban students’ advanced views on education.

“Their spark for education inspired me, and I hope to one day teach a classroom full of students as ambitious as these young boys and girls,” said sophomore Greg Billo of Orland Park, Illinoi